Indemnity Only

V. I. Warshawski, Book 1

By: Sara Paretsky

Narrated by: Susan Ericksen

Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins

Publisher's summary

In this gripping adventure - the first V.I. Warshawski mystery - America’s top private eye is tossed into a dangerous adventure when a seemingly straightforward assignment becomes complicated and deadly.

Hired by a man who calls himself John Thayer, V.I.’s assignment is to find Thayer’s son Peter’s missing girlfriend. But when V.I. finds young Peter’s dead body instead, her client disappears. Her efforts to track down her client and learn his true identity take her deep into a labyrinth of fraud and violence.

By the time V.I. figures out the answers she is in a race to find the missing young woman - before the murderers do.

©1991 Sara Paretsky (P)2011 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Great woman detective!

Any additional comments?

V.I. Warshawski is a great character. She is such a smart aleck that she had me chuckling aloud at times. I can appreciate her sarcasm. Fantastic narration by Susan Ericksen, as always. Although I had to keep reminding my self at the beginning that I wasn't listening to an Eve Dallas story. The only thing that annoyed me as I listened was the overuse of the characters' names during conversations. I hope this was a first time author mishap that is corrected as the series goes on. I can't wait to listen to the next in the series.

Female PI - murder mystery

An old time murder mystery from the 80s. It's very action packed and riveting. Loved it

Follow the series

Want to hear more and will continue to listen to the series.
The performance by someone I have listened to in past MM can be confusing.

3 ½ stars. Slightly above average.

Typical PI mystery series told in first person.

VI is a female private investigator. She is often short on money to pay her bills. A few times I thought I have no idea what I would do if I were the investigator. Then VI did something, and I was impressed. She is tough physically. For example, a bad guy has a gun, she jumps him, breaks his arm, rolls to the floor, and grabs the gun. The result is some good investigating ideas and some pretty good action scenes.

There were two sex scenes referred to, no details. They were written similar to “We entered the bedroom. Next morning we had coffee.”

PROBLEMS:
In real life thugs may swear in every sentence, but I’ve heard authors should cut down on that in writing fiction. The phrase “God damn it” was used a bit too much for me.

Two main characters were McGraw and Marshall. I kept getting them confused because the names were similar, both starting with the “ma” sound. This is minor, but it would have been better if one of them had a name starting with a different letter, like Adams or Baker. It might not have bothered me as much in the physical book. But it required effort on my part in the audiobook, frequently thinking “now which one was that?”

NARRATOR Susan Ericksen:
The dialogue has a lot of anger, yelling, shouting, and screaming. This should be ok when reading the physical book. But it was jarring as an audiobook when the narrator read those lines. Her voice was a little irritating to begin with, and then worse when she yelled. A different narrator with a softer voice might have been better.

THE SERIES:
This is the first book in the VI Warshawski series. So far there are 15 books in the series.

Genre: PI mystery

well done

story is great. It leaves you guessing right to the end. highly recommend it. audio is worth it.

chicago area mystery

Well written! Good story. Language use a factor depending on who's listening. Satisfying conclusion. Enjoy!

Indemnity only

Lots of action in this anniversary edition of this book. I'm a fan of this private eye, she always get the job done, not without a little attitude. Fair warning: there's quite a bit of bad language in this story, but it seems to fit the characters involved.

Back to the Beginning

Many of us have been reading/listening to Ms. Paretsky' novels for years. It was great to be able to go back and hear it all from the beginning for the first time. Great book and great listen. Thanks.

Disappointing

I've read most all of Sara Patetsky's books and have always liked them. This was the first one I've tried as an audiobook and probably my last. I didn't care at all for the reader. The males voices were just louder than the female voices and so always seemed like they were shouting.

Ok Story

Would you listen to Indemnity Only again? Why?

Yes definitely, I kept missing stuff so I would go back. Now I'm re-listening.

Would you listen to another book narrated by Susan Ericksen?

Yes and have. That might be the reason I can't relate to this character I keep hearing Eve Dallas.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

This one needed time to digest and understand the story.